Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to the field of computing systems, and more specifically, to processor design.
An instruction set, or instruction set architecture (ISA) of a computer processor architecture include a specification of machine language instructions (i.e., opcodes) and the native commands implemented by a particular processor. Instruction set architectures are sometimes classified as complex instruction set computers (CISC) having many specialized instructions, or reduced instruction set computers (RISC), having a limited set of frequently used instructions. An ISA may undergo changes in architecture as instructions are added, removed, and/or modified through successive generations. Recent advances in processor technology have enabled processors to support more powerful instructions that perform the same function that previously required two or more instructions.